Published by Steidl.Edited by Julie Ault. Text by Robert Storr, Miwon Kwon, et al.

Félix González-Torres, one of the most influential artists of his generation, lived and worked resolutely according to his own democratic ideology, determined to "make this a better place for everyone." Combining principles of Conceptual Art, minimalism and political activism, González-Torres' arsenal included public billboards, giveaway piles of candy or posters and ordinary objects (clocks, mirrors, light fixtures) often used to startling effect. His work challenged notions of public and private space, originality, authorship and the authoritative structure in which he functioned. With this volume, now in its second edition, Gonzalez-Torres's editor Julie Ault has amassed a comprehensive overview of this important artist. In the spirit of the artist's method, Ault rethinks the very idea of what a monograph should be. The book contains texts by Robert Storr and Miwon Kwon, among other notables, as well as significant critical essays, exhibition statements, transcripts from lectures, personal correspondence and writings that influenced González-Torres and his work. Ample visual documentation adds another decisive layer of content. We see works not just in their finality, but often witness their transformation over a lifespan.

Oscar Tuazon: Live, the second major publication on the American artist (born 1975), concentrates on an exhibition of new sculptural works at Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, including a full-scale reproduction of fragments of the artist's house in Los Angeles.

Nature, Art, Architecture

Published by Hatje Cantz.Text by Miwon Kwon, Kayo Tokuda.

Japanese publisher Soichiro Fukutake has transformed the island of Naoshima into an art lover's paradise. Located off the west coast of Japan, the island is home to Ando-designed museums showcasing works by Walter De Maria, James Turrell, Jackson Pollock, Cy Twombly, Bruce Nauman and David Hockney, as well as public installations by Cai Guo-Qiang and Yayoi Kusama.

Working in a variety of media and a range of scales, from humble works on paper to monumental staged performances, Francis Al˙s (born 1959) has established himself as one of the world's leading contemporary artists. Based in Mexico City since 1986, the artist fashions much of his work from the street life he observes during long walks throughout the city. Bringing together a variety of participants, from Mexican sign-painters to British Guardsmen, his collaborations have produced several well-known works, including "When Faith Moves Mountains" (2002), in which he enlisted 500 volunteers to attempt to move a sand dune one foot from its original position using shovels, and "The Modern Procession" (2002), a ceremonial procession commemorating MoMA's temporary move to Queens, New York, that included a brass band and uniformed participants carrying reproductions of the Museum's most famous works across the Queensboro bridge. Published to accompany the largest retrospective of Al˙s' work to date, this publication is more a guidebook than a conventional monograph, reflecting the spirit of the artist's wandering practice. It features an introductory essay by Mark Godfrey, a curator at the Tate Modern, an index of quotes from Al˙s' previous writings and interviews compiled by Klaus Biesenbach, Director of P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center, and descriptions of works written by Al˙s and Cuauhtémoc Medina, freelance curator and art critic, as well as responses to the artist's work from a wide range of critics and commentators.

Psycho Buildings: Artists and Architecture marks the fortieth anniversary of London's Hayward gallery--itself an architectural icon, and one of the few remaining examples of the 1960s Brutalist style. The exhibition brings together the work of artists--including Atelier Bow-Wow, Michael Beutler, Los Carpinteros, Gelitin, Mike Nelson, Ernesto Neto, Tobias Putrih, Tomas Saraceno, Do-Ho Suh and Rachel Whiteread--who create habitat-like structures and architectural environments that are mental and perceptual spaces as much as physical ones. The works in this book revisit and reanimate the history of Modernist design while reminding us that built spaces can be defined in social, political, psychological, physical and aesthetic terms. An invaluable exploration of this contemporary trend, the volume includes essays by Hayward Director Ralph Rugoff, Jane Rendell and Brian Dillon. In addition, each artist profile includes a text by a different author, including Francis McKee, Tumelo Mosaka, Midori Matsui, Brian Dillon, Paulo Herkenhoff, David Greene, Francesco Manacorda, Tom Morton, Miwon Kwon and Iain Sinclair.

Published by Guggenheim Museum.Text by David Joselit, Miwon Kwon, Alexandra Munroe, Wang Hui.

I Want to Believe accompanies the most comprehensive exhibition to date of the innovative body of work by Chinese-born artist Cai Guo-Qiang--best known for his spectacular artworks using gunpowder and fireworks. It presents a chronological and thematic survey that charts the artist’s creation of a distinctive visual and conceptual language across four mediums: drawings made from gunpowder fuses and explosive powders laid on paper and ignited; explosion events, documented by videos, photographs and preparatory drawings; large-scale installations; and social projects, wherein the artist works with local communities to create an art event or exhibition site, documented by photographs. Featuring works from the 1980s to the present, this volume illuminates Cai’s significant formal and conceptual contributions to contemporary international art practices and social activism. Generously illustrated more than 368 pages, this volume includes essays by Alexandra Munroe, David Joselit, Miwon Kwon and Wang Hui--along with some 60 documented plate entries. It is the defining scholarly publication on the artist thus far.

Published by Hatje Cantz Publishers.Edited by Philipp Kaiser. Essays by Sabeth Buchmann and Miwon Kwon.

The Swiss artist Christian Philipp Muller, who has been based in New York and Cologne for more than a decade, may be best known for a series of performances timed to his appearance in the 1993 Venice Bienniale: Green Border saw him cross over and back from Austria to adjacent territories repeatedly, each time illegally. Muller, who has also performed as a Dutch royal at ceremonious social occasions and costumed himself as a museum guard, given out mock-historical pamphlets and offered tours of student exhibitions, remains interested in all the questions raised by this sort of work--in context or site-specificity, in historical or cultural codes, in research and investigations of all sorts, and not least in surprising and entertaining the viewer. Christian Philipp Muller offers a concise survey of his oeuvre.

Works 1988-2003

Through her use of color and assemblage, Jessica Stockholder challenges familiar generic boundaries between painting and sculpture, while de-familiarizing the experience of the exhibition space--not to mention giving the impression of a K-Mart store that's been bulldozed by a group of feminist abstract expressionists. In 1988, Stockholder created the self-contained assemblage Kissing the Wall No. 2 an old-fashion projector screen wrapped in newspaper and plaster that stands like a bad child facing a florescent lamp secured to the wall. This seminal work, from which this exhibition and catalogue take their name, uses the gallery wall as a screen kissed by various objects in what the artist calls “an emotionally charged event.” This work, in which found objects become actors in the drama of space and color, is exemplary of the many objects gathered together for this retrospective look at Stockholder's self-contained assemblages since 1988. Includes an interview with the artist, scholarly essays, an annotated chronology and a detailed exhibition and publication history.

A master of the art of glassblowing and a practitioner of the complexities of conceptual art, Josiah McElheny stretches and twists the fragile borders between appearance and reality, truth and imagination, tradition and modernity, text and object. From original documents such as the archeological remains of a child's grave, the fashion designs of Venini, and 16th-century frescos, McElheny creates a physical world of glass.